


Under the Northern Lights

by lwise2019



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24798229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: Some of the fans have organized a "Chapter Break Filler" (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=1118.105) on the fan forum, to keep people going through the upcoming chapter break.  They have a series of prompts, one for each day, the first being "Birth".  That was the impetus for this story.  I'm not putting it on the fan forum because as best I understand the rules, it isn't eligible, being set in Canada instead of the Known World.  I've thought a lot about the possibilities of survival in Canada.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	Under the Northern Lights

The world ended four months ago. I suppose it ended a little earlier in some places, a little later in others, but here it ended exactly four months ago today. That was when the last contact with the outside world … stopped.

Not that we'd had a lot of contact before that. The lodge is in the wilderness beside Great Slave Lake and our only means of contact was radio or the satellite dish. Or, well, we could have taken the snowmobiles and tried to go back to Yellowknife but …

I was up here to see the Northern Lights. Jack didn't want me to go because I was already four months along, but, really, once the baby came I wouldn't be able to come up here at all. This is no place for a baby. We thought that, anyway. Jack didn't come because he had an "important business meeting".

They closed the borders the day after I got here. There'd been rumors about the disease in Europe — the "Rash" they call it — and everyone was on edge, but actually closing the borders? That seemed sort of extreme. It seemed extreme _then._

The other guests left when that was announced, going home to their families because the borders were still open for repatriation. I didn't go. I figured the borders would be reopened in a few weeks or a few months, and Jack was busy as always, and … things weren't that good between us. I thought the baby would tie us together somehow, but it didn't seem to be working out that way.

Water under the bridge now.

It was just five days after the borders were closed that we heard officially just how terribly lethal the Rash was, and how it infected any mammal at all, even mice and weasels like we had around the lodge. There'd been rumors before that but, well, who could believe that? When we heard that, Viktor moved us all to this island: him; me; Evelyn, the cook; Noah and Ryan, the guides; and Noah's girlfriend, Rose.

The lodge already had a tent here, and a stove, and there's plenty of firewood and we could fish through the ice. Nothing could approach without being seen, and now nothing can get here without swimming. We watch all day and all night, taking turns. Well, not me now. There are squirrels and rodents and other little mammals on the island, but they aren't infected. Nothing can reach them to infect them. Or us.

Viktor rigged a hand-cranked radio for us, but everything we heard was bad and got worse and worse until the stations went off the air, one by one. We still crank it up once a week, on Sunday (we think it's Sunday — we might have got off by a day or two in all the confusion), but we haven't received anything in four months.

I was supposed to be here for ten days. That's much longer than the normal stay, but we were friends with Viktor and willing to pay extra. I wanted to be sure I saw the Lights, because it would be years before I'd get another chance.

Yeah, I've had lots of chances. The Lights are beautiful, the only beautiful things left in the world, I think.

Except for Sophia. She was born this morning and she is perfect.


End file.
